Jeremy Musson, ‘The battle for Lady Tankerville’s bedroom: Wyatville’s unexecuted plans for Chillingham Castle’, The Georgian Group Journal, Vol. xxIII, 2015, pp. 195–212
text © the authors 2015 THE BATTLE FOR LADY TANKERVILLE’S BEDROOM: WYATVILLE’S UNEXECUTED PLANS FOR CHILLINGHAM CASTLE
JEREMY MUSSON
effry Wyatville ( – ) was one of the Smirke, Nash, and Soane. There he recreated the Jimpresario architects of the late-Georgian period. medieval glamour of this famous seat of the British Ambitious and able, he was said to be easy company monarch – and earned the title ‘Architect to the and, unlike his talented uncle James Wyatt, in whose King’. One of his less known commissions, from the office he had worked, he was also business-like and same year as his Windsor appointment, was an efficient. Wyatville (plain Wyatt until but, as ambitious plan for additions to Chillingham Castle known as Wyatville for the subject of this article, that in Northumberland for the fifth Earl of Tankerville surname shall be used throughout) was prolific. His ( – ) of which only a small element was greatest achievement was the restoration and actually executed – owing it seems to a disagreement rebuilding of Windsor Castle in – , the with the Countess of Tankerville about her bedroom commission for which he won in competition with (Fig. ).
Fig. . Chillingham Castle, the north front and the splay walls. ( Country Life Picture Library )
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This story is revealed in a surviving album of castellar houses were as likely as to have fine signed plans, dated , entitled ‘Designs/for Classical interiors as Gothic. After setting up in Additions to Chillingham Castle/in the same style independent practice, Wyatville’s own commissions that has been already pursued in altering it/for the included improvements to the Marquess of Bath’s Rt Honble the Earl of Tankerville/by Jeffry Wyatville Longleat from to , including a new stable Archt/ ’. It is in the private collection of a direct range – where he also collaborated with Repton for descendant of Wyatville’s client and these plans were the first time. At Badminton he remodelled principal unknown to scholars in the past – the album is not reception rooms between and , and in mentioned either by Howard Colvin or Derek he was at work at Woburn. Famously, Wyatville was Linstrum. There are a handful of other contemporary in charge of major improvements and additions to plans in existence – those mentioned by Linstrum Chatsworth in Derbyshire from , through the and a finely drawn ground plan in the RIBA s and beyond. For the latter project at collection, which appears to be a presentation copy of Chatsworth, the sixth Duke of Bedford (his client at the first ground plan in the album. The Chillingham Woburn) wrote to recommend Wyatville warmly to Castle album can also be read closely with various the sixth Duke of Devonshire, saying that the papers deposited in the Northumberland Archives at architect was ‘well worthy of your confidence – he Woodhorn, especially those in the ‘Tankerville has no inconsiderable share of taste as an architect [Chillingham Castle] mss’, Box , entitled: ‘The and whatever he undertakes he executes with skill & Right Honble. The Earl of Tankerville Estate No. ’ judgment’. Although no such letter survives proving which contains ‘miscellaneous Estate Maps and a direct link between Jeffry Wyatville’s work at Papers, th – th centuries’. These include further Chatsworth and his commission in to design drawings of architectural details, some signed by large new additions to Chillingham Castle in Wyatville (i.e details for the cornice for staircase hall Northumberland, it seems probable that the Duke of and the family pew, and a design for a new Vinery) Devonshire introduced him to his friend and and, most significantly, books of masons’ accounts for contemporary the fifth Earl of Tankerville. – , showing renovation of a number of key There were close familial and political ties (and a structures around the garden, estate and work to the little strife too) between their two families, so the castle itself – including to the ‘Castle interior’. These Tankervilles would have been well aware of the with the evidence of nineteenth- and early-twentieth architect’s ongoing work at Chatsworth. Lord century photographs and of the building itself Tankerville’s wife, Corisande, ( – ) was a (despite later nineteenth century alterations and mid daughter of the Duc de Gramont. Her mother, twentieth century decay of the interiors) give a Louise Gabrielle Aglaé, was a daughter of the Duc de valuable picture of the approach to these designs, the Polignac, and her de Polignac grandmother was a context of the commission and its ultimate failure. close friend of both the French queen, Marie- In the s, Wyatville would have been a natural Antionette, and Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire choice for a titled and landed proprietor who wanted (Fig. ). Corisande fled the French Revolution as a to modernise a historic family seat but keep it in a young child and was brought up as a ward of the historic style. Wyatville had ably been trained up by Devonshires, thus regarding Chatsworth as one of his architect uncles Samuel and James and he could her family homes. A famous beauty, it has been work with equal facility in Gothic and Classical suggested that she was the first love of Georgiana’s styles – he was himself a pioneer of the neo- son the sixth Duke (who never married) as well as Elizabethan style for the country house. His Gothic his half-brother, Augustus Clifford. The fifth Duke
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Corisande but presented ‘little O’ with a seat in Parliament in his gift (as MP for Knaresborough); Ossulston said that ‘some wives bring their husbands fortunes but mine brought me a borough’. Although there had been a minor political falling out in , the sixth, ‘Bachelor’, Duke was a guest at house parties at Chillingham Castle into the s. During one visit there his portrait was sketched by the artist Landseer who had befriended the fifth Earl’s son and heir, Baron Ossulston (b. ), while in Scotland – Landseer famously depicted the latter in Scene in Chillingham Park: Portrait of Lord Ossulston, which hung at Chillingham Castle until the s. Wyatville’s work at Chatsworth greatly extended the accommodation of the house, in a style which did honour to the Baroque palace. At Chillingham, the historic quality of the existing castle would also have been an important consideration. The Tankervilles – whose family name was Bennet – were important Northumbrian landowners. The Chillingham Castle estate came to them by marriage in the early eighteenth century through a branch of the ancient Grey family. Charles Bennet – son of John Bennet, created first Baron Ossulston in – Fig. . Corisande Armandine, Countess of Tankerville married Lady Mary Grey, daughter and heiress of by John Cochran, published after a miniature by Anne Mee. ( National Portrait Gallery, D ) Ford, Lord Grey of Warke, Viscount Grey of Glendale and Earl of Tankerville (d. ); he was a supporter of the Duke of Monmouth yet survived this association to become First Lord of the Treasury of Devonshire was very generous to Corisande when and to build Uppark in Sussex. After his father-in- she and the fifth Earl of Tankerville – as Baron law’s death Charles Bennet was created Earl of Ossulston, or ‘little O’ as he was known to the family Tankerville. Chillingham Castle – which his and to the Cavendishes – married. The marriage had descendant the fifth Earl had inherited in – was already been delayed for two years after a falling out then a picturesque and ancient nobleman’s seat, but between ‘little O’ and his own father, who did not it was clearly constrained and complex in plan as a approve of the marriage in theory for lack of any country house, despite modest improvements made dowry but, by tradition, for fear of introducing by his father. It was one of the admired historic Duchess Georgiana’s gambling lifestyle to border castles in a county rich in historic castles, Chillingham. They were eventually married in many of them barely habitable or in ruins by the at Devonshire House in London (by special licence) early nineteenth century; the fourth Earl had only and the Duke not only settled a dowry of £ , on resided in the castle in the summer months.
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When Wyatville was asked to look at This latter work had been carried out in a very Chillingham Castle it was still a largely fourteenth- respectful Gothic style externally by the Edinburgh century fortress remodelled in the s, especially architect John Paterson, preserving the outline of the in the north- and south-facing ranges, to provide fourteenth-century castle; the elegant neo-classical more commodious accommodation for visits of King interiors within have since been lost (the rooms are James VI of Scotland (and st of England). Sir now the Castle’s museum rooms). Paterson was then Thomas Grey had been granted a licence to the leading practitioner in the castle style as developed crenellate the property in and he is credited in Scotland by Robert and James Adam. New with building the quadrangular castle with four kitchen offices on the east side were also ‘to be built of corner towers and an inner courtyard. Important old materials from the wash house, malting and alterations were made in the late Elizabethan era, stables, and to be built as like the work of castle as the when this was the Greys’ principal residence. An materials will admit of’, further materials to be used engraving ‘The west view of Chillingham Castle, for the new park-keeper’s house and a new gateway. Northumberland’ by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, of Paterson had perhaps made other suggestions for , shows the castle (in fact from the north) much extending the house for the fourth Earl of Tankerville; as it was found by Wyatville, although with a series of the title used for the Chillingham album, ‘Designs for formal enclosures around it. (Fig. ). The eastern Additions to Chillingham Castle in the same style portion had already been ‘gutted’ and partly rebuilt which had already been pursued in altering it’ may in , and the upper apartments on that side of the refer to a previous plan for additions, or perhaps even house modernised to create new bedrooms with to Paterson’s earlier work for the fifth Earl, if not to an elegant apsidal ends. earlier scheme for additions to the west.
Fig. . Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, ‘The West View of Chillingam Castle, in Northumberland’ (in fact the north view), .
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What was the fifth Earl’s motive for this with her sense of her own family’s position and one commission? It could well have been political as which kept pace with the admired improvements at much as anything else. He had been deeply involved Chatsworth. They both may also have wanted a in politics as a young man as a supporter of Fox, and greater degree of comfort. The castle, despite some had already served as an MP under the active improvements by Paterson, must have seemed very patronage of the fifth Duke of Devonshire (for inconvenient by the s, with none of the ample Knaresborough, and later in – for Berwick). rooms of entertainment and circulation – by now the He had held a minor ministerial position, as accepted norm of great house life – nor with the Treasurer of the Household in Lord Grenville’s rationally planned domestic offices which by then ‘Ministry of all the Talents’, in – and was a supported the domestic and social life of country Privy Councillor – his brother Henry Grey Bennet houses. This was, as Linstrum has pointed out, not was an even more successful and highly thought-of so long after the diarist the Hon. John Byng politician who resigned from the House in after described the ‘uncomfortable rooms’ of (pre- the death of both of his children in that year. Wyatville) Chatsworth, the coach passage at Raby Tankerville, who ended his political career as a Castle as ‘chill[ing] the house with winds’ and Conservative, may well have had ambitions to make historic Skipton Castle as ‘a most inconvenient, the house more magnificent and more suitable to miserable, tattered place’. entertain his political allies and patrons following his Wyatville’s ambitious plans for Chillingham Castle entry in the House of Lords in . contained within the album under review fall into two The improvements may have been driven by the versions, as well as some loose unsigned perspective Countess, wanting a principal seat more in keeping sketches which may be later unexecuted proposals by
Fig. . Wyatville’s drawing No. showing the north front with the large new west wing as proposed. (collection of Charles Bain-Smith, photograph copyright Country Life Picture Library [CLPL] )
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Fig. . Drawing No , ‘South front of Chillingham Castle – with additions in the same style’, . (collection of Charles Bain-Smith, CLPL )
Fig. . Drawing No ( ), showing the dining room and drawing room as proposed by Wyatville in the first scheme. ( collection of Charles Bain-Smith, CLPL )
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Edward Blore. One of the groups of drawings within would be the first floor as seen from the north). the album is a fully worked out and extensive scheme For, at the head of the new staircase (on ground level which would have effectively doubled the volume of on the south side), and approached by a large the already large castle, adding two three-storeyed ‘Vestibule lighted above’, there was also to be a wings to the west around a courtyard (Fig. ). These handsomely proportioned library with a large bay wings would have contained a large new kitchen and window facing south. The ‘Vestibule’ also led to a servants’ hall and other specialised domestic quarters, new study for Lord Tankerville, a dressing room, as well as new bedrooms and dressing rooms on the bedroom and commodious WC. first floor. The ground floor on the south front would Though neither of these sets of proposals was in have contained a new library and drawing room. the end fully executed, they provide a vivid picture of (Fig. ) The first floor was to be approached from the a major Regency country house commission to north by a vast new staircase hall which in turn would modernize and extend a picturesque ancient family have transformed the ease of circulation around all the seat in the mid- s in a distinctive blend of principal social rooms of the castle. The entrance for ‘House’ and ‘Castle’ Gothic. The album illustrates this grander proposal remained the central late- the priorities of a titled landowner in providing large Elizabethan gateway of the north front, obliging the convenient rooms for assembly and entertainment, visitor still to progress through a relatively narrow first connected by a fluent and spacious staircase, flight of stairs, before arriving in the imposing volume additional bedroom suites for private comfort and of the proposed great ‘New Stairs’ – the latter would guests alike, and, in the case of the of more extensive have had an effect similar to those Wyatville had proposal, a considerably enlarged service wing. inserted successfully at both Longleat and Chatsworth Although Wyatville could draw on the experience of (Fig. ). adapting two great Elizabethan ‘prodigy houses’, The second group of designs in the album is a Longleat and Wollaton, he had not in fact worked on more modestly scaled version of the same, without a such a complex historic castle until he began to new kitchen courtyard but still with a new west range tackle Windsor Castle itself. on three storeys built along the western wall (Figs. Wyatville’s approach at Chillingham was aimed at and ). This would still have increased the drama of making a workable modern country house within the the approach to the social rooms on the first floor of historic shell. He did not propose any major the south front with the inclusion of a grandly-scaled demolitions, except in the west wall of the south-east staircase rising from a proposed new entrance and tower. He appears to have been particularly concerned porch sited to the west of the existing north-west with the dignity of the approach to the principal tower. A loose elevational drawing for this proposal ‘Evening Drawing Room’ and the progress through is in the same private collection as the album and the house to and from dinner or receptions in the shows a new entrance contrived through an almost drawing room (a subject of great interest to the sixth mirror reflection of the extant tower to create a Duke of Devonshire as evidenced by his remarks in strong composition on that side, which would his Handbook to Chatsworth) . A degree of interior however have left the late-Elizabethan entrance work was certainly carried out by Wyatville; six marooned. Even this reduced scheme would have masons were employed in , one (James Farmer) increased the volume of the castle by perhaps working from April to November that year, but the something approaching a third; and would also have sums involved are small compared to works on the extended the existing principal ground floor on the park. Some of this work can be seen in old south side (because of the fall of the ground, this photographs and watercolours. These show that
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Fig. . Alternative proposal for the west end of , showing a new entrance hall and main staircase. (collection of Charles Bain-Smith, CLPL )
Fig. . ‘General Plan nd Design’ ( ), showing alternative western extension including new entrance. (collection of Charles Bain-Smith, CLPL )
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Fig. . Nineteenth-century watercolour of the dining room showing the Wanstead House chimneypieces. (collection of Charles Bain-Smith )
Wyatville’s internal treatment was entirely Classical in much of the work carried out in the mid s, as character, though he carefully preserved the late evidenced by the masons’ accounts, was for park Elizabethan plasterwork ceiling of the Great Chamber walls, steps, walks, bridges, gates, flagging, the or ‘Evening Drawing Room’. In the fuller proposals in ‘Battlement of offices’ and repairs ‘Embattled walls’. the album the Dining Room was to be created within Wyatville’s design for a single-storey ‘Village Lodge’ the original Great Hall (the ground floor on the south (drawing No. in the album) shows a small house on front) and a new grandly scaled ‘Morning Drawing an octagonal plan, like a toy castle, with crenellated Room’ in the new south-west wing (Fig. ). In the end, walls and a canted bay on a splayed plinth (Fig. ). just a new Dining Room ( ft x ft, and ft high) This was executed although given an additional was created in the old Great Hall, in which two early- storey. It is this sort of concentrated, Picturesque eighteenth-century carved white marble design which shows Wyatville at his most ingenious. chimneypieces from the just-demolished Wanstead The album also provides some evidence that much of House in Essex were incorporated, presumably under the new landscaping and the Italianate gardens for Wyatville’s direction. It is possible other fittings were which Chillingham later became so famous were incorporated at the same time (Fig. ). evolved from Wyatville’s s interventions. A The album also illustrates the significance of version of the terracing and general layout is outlined landscaping in contemporary country house in drawing No. , a development of the gardens visible improvements, and the significance of approach, in earlier surveys; the version now in the RIBA also arrival and the visual play of the different parts of the includes more colour in the parterre to emphasise its building within the landscape. It is significant that importance (Fig. ).
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Fig. . Wyatville’s proposal for the Village Lodge, drawing No . (collection of Charles Bain-Smith, CLPL )
Fig. . Wyatville’s proposal drawing No , showing proposed new landscaping. (collection of Charles Bain-Smith, CLPL )
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This main ground floor plan – drawing No of principal ground floor room of this new wing was to the principal set of designs in the album – also shows be the vast ‘Library or Morning Drawing Room’. clearly a proposed new carriage sweep centred on The kitchen, on the level below this, would have the historic main entrance on the north front, with been entirely sunk into the lie of the hill and is the two canted screen walls very much as executed. shown with a large window facing north into the The splay walls serve to frame the historic castle and adjoining yard. Between these two wings was to be increase the drama and impact of the immediate a large (and presumably top lit) staircase hall formed approach. This plan also shows a former stable alongside the old external west wall with a west- building (visible as a roofless building in the facing first-floor window which was to be mullioned foreground of the Buck view) which appears to have and transomed; most of the other proposed windows been deliberately dismantled to provide a new read as sash. West of each of these proposed wings Picturesque eye-catcher. The angled screen walls was to be a further single-storeyed addition of are not shown in the elevational drawing for the domestic offices, again hidden from views from the north elevation as proposed on sheet No , south by the fall of the ground, and from the presumably so that the full impact of the proposed entrance (north) front by a screen wall and planting. west wings could be read more clearly. The historian These western wings would have created a Madeleine Hope Dodds in stressed the substantial, trapezoidal ‘Office Court’ shaped like a importance of Wyatville’s landscaping. She evidently schematic crab’s claw, as seen in plan on drawing No had access to family papers still undispersed and in ; a ‘Kitchen Court’ forms the western end (Fig. ). the estate office, and observed confidently that Wyatville also took his exterior architectural Wyatville ‘fresh from his triumphs at Windsor Castle detail as much from the medieval parts of the castle . . . was responsible for extensive alterations in the as from the late-Elizabethan additions. The setting of the castle; new avenues were planted and proposed north and south elevations (drawing No park walls were built, the formal forecourt was and No respectively) show how the additions replaced by the current green banks and gravel would continue the crenellation of the original castle. driveway, and a very fine Italian garden containing The ground-floor windows on the south and west, some beautiful vases was laid out on the west side of with Tudor-Gothic drip moulds and a canted bay the castle’. According to the present owner, this window on two storeys on the western extremity of work is thought to have been completed in the proposed south elevation, repeated the form of connection with a gift from King Louis-Philippe I of the late-Elizabethan porch on the centre of the France, in around , of vases for the garden. existing south front, creating a turret effect. Seen Wyatville’s proposals for the house seem to take on the flat in the album, without the benefit of the their cue to some extent from the physical landscape actual dramatic landscape setting of the castle, it is and the view. A modest tower-like addition to the perhaps difficult to visualise how impressive these north-west tower, of one bay (which was executed in western additions might have been. This is perhaps part) takes the eye round to the proposed north-west suggested best by the drawing No. , which shows wing: an addition of five bays over three storeys. The the composition as it would be seen from the west, proposed south-west wing was also of three storeys, from whence the different levels and plans of the of which only two would be visible to the south, composition seem, to a modern eye, more successful given the fall of the land, and this would have than the long and relatively flat elevations of the extended out from the existing south-west tower at proposed north and south elevations (Fig. ). an angle following the line of the landscape. The Why only a modest degree of Wyatville’s
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Fig. . Wyatville’s first proposal of , showing the proposed western addition including kitchen and domestic offices. ( collection of Charles Bain-Smith, CLPL )
Fig . drawing No , showing the proposed treatment of the west side of the castle. ( collection of Charles Bain- Smith, CLPL )
Fig. . proposal, showing the first-floor arrangements in Wyavtille’s first scheme, with the question about Lady Tankerville’s bedroom at the top right. ( collection of Charles Bain-Smith, CLPL )
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIII THE BATTLE FOR LADY TANKERVILLE ’ S BEDROOM : WYATVILLE ’ S PLANS FOR CHILLINGHAM CASTLE improvements was carried out in the s, and the in her diaries, of whom he said that she was ‘a more ambitious plans abandoned, must remain only flirtatious little woman who doesn’t know what she’s conjecture. But a clue may reside in the one significant about’; she had after all grown up at Chatsworth in and highly unusual annotation on one drawing by the company of Lady Caroline Lamb, Lord Wyatville himself. On drawing No , Wyatville shows Melbourne’s wife and Byron’s mistress. Later, a grand top-lit staircase leading to the first floor level Lady Tankerville conducted a scandalous public of the south front of the old castle, in which are affair with the rising politician and disciple of disposed the Evening Drawing Room and Music Disraeli, George Smythe, then in his early s – and Room (Fig. ). The principal first-floor room in the thirty-six years her junior. Even for protégées of the south-west corner tower is marked ‘Lady T’s Bed fifth Duke of Devonshire, hers must have been a room’ (i.e. Lady Tankerville’s bedroom) and a note in ‘lively’ marriage and one which perhaps made the margin, in a clear office hand which can only be an concerted decision-making about works to the exhortation from its architect to his client, pointed complex historic house at Chillingham difficult. out: ‘If Lady Tankerville would give up her Bed room, Despite their long marriage, Lord and Lady a direct communication would be had to the Stairs Tankerville could clearly travel different paths. without down and up through ‘A’ by the old Stairs viz. Thomas Creevey recorded ‘The Tankervilles have a down to & up again’ – referring to a set of steps, box at the French play, and that he and she have it and the old Stairs being those in the south-west the alternate weeks. Is that not the image of them corner of the castle. As at Chatsworth, Wyatville’s both?’ When Lord Tankerville was troubled with concern was to modernise the circulation and reduce cataracts, Lady Jersey asked Lady Tankerville whether the seriously awkward progress guests had through her husband had been blind long, to which Lady the ancient building for any entertainment of scale. Tankerville replied archly: ‘Long! No, but I have kept Wyatville was clearly finding this impossible without him in the dark ever since we were married’. using the south-west tower room. Of course, the fifth Earl may simply have This pointed annotation might well suggest that considered the expense of the new wings which the beguiling but perhaps capricious countess, formed a great courtyard to the west of the castle too known for her many affairs, was not prepared to great. He also may have begun to think more seriously countenance having a bedroom provided in a of the prospect of adapting the family’s southern seat different part of the castle, and the greater part of the as being more convenient for entertaining political plan may have foundered on this single issue. It allies. For in , on the death of his mother (who seems curious that Lady Tankerville would not have had had a life interest in Walton Hall, also known as preferred a more modern bedroom – a new Mount Felix, at Walton-on-Thames) he immediately dressing room was to be provided in the adjoining commissioned Charles Barry to design a replacement new wing. She may have simply been unwilling to house in his best ‘Travellers-Club-Italianate’, the give up her views. But she was also an designs for which are also in the RIBA collection unconventional person. Benjamin Disraeli was (Fig. ). He had something a knack of engaging his fascinated by her and noted in his diaries: ‘Lady architects as they plunged into major national Tankerville and her lovers! How much I c[ou]ld projects, for this was the year in which Barry won the write about this coterie’. Disraeli also appropriated competition to design the new Palace of Westminster. her Christian name for a character in his successful The Tankervilles’ prevarications in the mid s had novel Lothair . Queen Victoria recorded with coincided with Wyatville’s increasing commitments at interest Lord Melbourne’s view of Lady Tankerville Windsor Castle and elsewhere, but this does not seem
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIII THE BATTLE FOR LADY TANKERVILLE ’ S BEDROOM : WYATVILLE ’ S PLANS FOR CHILLINGHAM CASTLE to have affected his other outstanding commissions at the time. Some improvements were certainly carried out to the interiors under Wyatville’s direction, as evidenced by the only surviving masons’ accounts for – (which give payments and a list of projects but no specific details of the interior work). These works probably included the insertion of sash windows on the south front (since replaced by smaller paned sash windows in the early eighteenth century style) as well as the fitting out of the grand Dining Room – now again known as the Great Hall – which filled most of the south front of the old castle between the towers. The two Wanstead House marble chimneypieces introduced at this date changed the character of the room dramatically. Lady Tankerville may possibly have known Wanstead House when another French émigré, Louis Joseph, Prince de Condé, was living there, in Fig. . Mount Felix, Walton Hall, Surrey, by Sir Charles considerable style, in the early s as a tenant. Barry for the fifth Earl Tankerville. By , financial disaster forced the then owners, (English Heritage, National Monuments Record ) the Long-Wellesleys, to sell their disposable assets: the fabric and contents of Wanstead House itself (the land they could not sell and had prescribed rights Chillingham had they been executed, given the even to mortgage). The contents were sold at auction resonant historic original and the intrinsic drama of in and then the building itself was sold for the landscape in which it sits. The larger part of the demolition in to Stannard and Athow of designs for the main house in the Chillingham album Norwich who sold off the fittings and materials. were, however, not executed, and by Edward At Chillingham Castle, Wyatville’s contribution Blore was providing alternative designs for both the also included some alterations made to the castle, with mullion and transomed fenestration landscaping; the Village Lodge and the vicarage distinct from the sashes proposed by Wyatville, as (now known as the Manor House) were also well as for other lodges and cottages in the village. executed to his designs. Wyatville was clearly alive In , the domestic offices on east side of the castle to the picturesque possibilities of the setting when he were also considerably extended. No architect is extended or remodelled older houses. His work at known, but a plan and an elevation dated July of Windsor Castle was in this spirit; Prince Pückler- no great sophistication survive in the Muskau said that it was ‘executed not only at a great Northumberland Record Office, signed ‘JW’; he cost and with technical skill, but with uncommon might be J. G.Wallace of Newcastle on Tyne, who taste, nay, genius’ and the new additions ‘so perfectly sent a cover note with the plans to Lord Tankerville’s executed, that they are hardly to be distinguished agent Jacob Wilson. This work may have been from the old part’. Perhaps similar enthusiasm carried out in anticipation of the Prince of Wales’s would have been expressed for his additions to visit to the castle in October of that year . The west-
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Fig. . Chillingham Castle, the Great Hall today, photograph by Paul Barker . (Country Life Picture Library )
facing mullion and transomed windows of the north- when it was taken on by Sir Humphry Wakefield, west tower were also remodelled at the same date. Bt., in , with a view to its restoration – his wife, Chillingham Castle was unoccupied in the s, the Hon. Lady Wakefield, is a descendant of the one historian noting: ‘at the time of writing the castle Grey family who built the castle. The Wakefields is empty and unfurnished, nor can this be regarded have since reinhabited the castle, reroofed and as altogether surprising in view of its plan’ . It was repaired it, and opened it to the public – with the requisitioned by the military during the Second great hall and great chamber presented with a strong World War and was damaged by fire; it was later emphasis on reinstating their pre-nineteenth-century repaired by Sir Albert Richardson who re-instated character (Figs. and ). This revival has certain mullioned and transomed windows and triumphantly reclaimed the romantic reputation of restored the room over the gateway to its late this historic fortress in the visiting public’s Elizabethan proportions, reversing former imagination, although the screen walls, terraces and subdivision. Like so many large, remote and the restored Italianate garden to the west inconvenient houses after the war, it was never immediately also evoke the taste of early nineteenth- properly reoccupied (the present Earl grew up in century romantic interventions of Wyatville (Fig ), San Francisco). Standing empty for much of the most of whose ambitious plans for this ancient middle of the century the castle suffered badly from border castle remained only on paper. wet and dry rot and was described in ‘poor condition’ when listed in . Parts were derelict
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIII THE BATTLE FOR LADY TANKERVILLE ’ S BEDROOM : WYATVILLE ’ S PLANS FOR CHILLINGHAM CASTLE
Fig. . Chillingham Castle, the north front, photograph by Paul Barker. (Country Life Picture Library )
Fig. . Chillingham Castle seen from the west across the restored Italianate parterres, photograph by Paul Barker. ( Country Life Picture Library )
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIII THE BATTLE FOR LADY TANKERVILLE ’ S BEDROOM : WYATVILLE ’ S PLANS FOR CHILLINGHAM CASTLE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . ‘General Plan,/Chillingham Castle,/Lord Thanks to Charles Bain-Smith for his kindness in Tankerville’, London: RIBA, SD / ; I am grateful giving generous access to the Tankerville papers in to Olivia Horsfall Turner of the V&A for her most helpful advice on this plan. his possession including the album of . Northumberland, Woodhorn: Northumberland Wyatville’s designs, estate accounts and collections Archives (formerly Northumberland Record of photographs, paintings and prints, and sharing his Office): NRO : Box D; Colvin, p. ; ideas, and his time to review this material as well as Linstrum, pp. – . his own researches into the house and family; and . Linstrum, pp. –. . Ibid ., p. . thanks also to Paul Moores whose Cambridge M.St. . Ibid , p. . Linstrum notes the many visitors to dissertation on Wyatville at Chatsworth I supervised Chatsworth who would have seen Wyatville’s work. in – , for enjoyable opportunities to discuss . G. H. White, The Complete Peerage , XII (London, Wyavtille’s career and works there in detail. Thanks ), p. . also to Clare Scott, Archivist of the Northumberland . Katherine Baetjer, Pastel Portraits: Images of th- Archives, Woodhorn, Ashington, for her help in Century Europe, (New Haven and London, ), p. . identifying and digitizing the masons’ accounts for . Hugh Stokes, The Devonshire Circle (London, Chillingham and additional signed Wyatville ), p. . working drawings in the Northumberland Archives . Information from Sir Humphry Wakefield, (NRO). Thanks also to for Sir Humphry Wakefield, // . Bt, and the Hon. Lady Wakefield, for their kindness . Brian Masters, Georgiana: Duchess of Devonshire (London, ), p. ; R. G.Thorne, ‘Bennet, and hospitality at Chillingham Castle, and to Sir Charles Augustus, Lord Ossulston ( – ),’ Humphry for generously sharing his knowledge and from www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/ experience of the building and giving me the – . opportunity of getting to know the building over the . Ibid. past few years. . Duncan Thompson, ‘Recent Museum Acquisitions’, Burlington Magazine , (April, ), pp. – ; Lord Ossulston, Reminiscences of Life in the Highlands (privately printed, ), pp. – . ENDNOTES . G. H. White (ed), Complete Peerage, XII, p. . . Derek Linstrum, Sir Jeffry Wyatville: Architect to . Madeleine Hope Dodds, History of the King (Oxford, ). Linstrum discusses his Northumberland (Newcastle, ), XIV, work at Windsor on pp. – ; H. M. Colvin, pp. –. Biographical Dictionary of British Architects , th . Ibid ., p. , quoted from Autobiography of Mrs ed. (New Haven and London, ), pp. – . Fletcher (Edinburgh, ), p. : ‘Old Lord . For Chillingham, Colvin, Dictionary , p. ; Tankerville spent that summer as his wont was, at Linstrum, pp. , , – ; Jeremy Musson, his baronial residence Chillingham Castle ... he had ‘Chillingham Castle, Northumberland, Country that summer [ ] for the first time overcome a Life, (April , ), pp. – . strong reluctance to the marriage of his eldest son’. . Kent, Folkestone: collection of Charles Bain-Smith; . Ibid ., pp. – . all the plans are reproduced here by his kind . Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, ‘The west view of permission and courtesy of Country Life Picture Chillingham Castle, Northumberland’ original Library/June Buck. The album is inscribed on the copper engravings, and republished in the later front cover in ink: ‘Designs/for Additions to eighteenth century. Chillingham Castle/ in the same style that has been . Colvin, Dictionary , p. ; Hope Dodds , op. cit , already pursued in altering it/for the Rt Honble the p. . Earl of Tankerville/by Jeffry Wyatville Archt/ ’. . Colvin, Dictionary , p. .
THE GEORGIAN GROUP JOURNAL VOLUME XXIII THE BATTLE FOR LADY TANKERVILLE ’ S BEDROOM : WYATVILLE ’ S PLANS FOR CHILLINGHAM CASTLE
. Hope Dodds, op. cit., p. ; a reference to . Ibid , drawing No. , ‘South Front’, p. (see Fig. 5). Paterson’s memorandum suggests that stables . Ibid , drawing No. , ‘Bedroom Storey’, p. . This is designed in by William Newton of Newcastle not mere marginalia and not in Wyatville’s normal had not been built or were not complete. handwriting, as seen in his signature: see Linstrum, . ‘Designs for Additions’, cover page inscription. op. cit. , p. 217. It has been written out in a clear . Thorne, Commons, – , as n. . office hand typical of Wyatville’s presentation . Linstrum, op. cit ., pp. – . drawings (see Linstrum, p. 208). This text can only . Ibid. , p. . have been addressed by Wyatville to his client. . ‘Designs for Additions’, drawings Nos – , . Mary Millar, Disraeli’s Disciple: the Scandalous Life pp. – . of George Smythe (Toronto, ), p. . . Ibid. , p. and pp. – . . Leslie A.Marchand (ed), Byron’s Letters and . ‘Designs for Additions’, drawings Nos & , Journals: ‒ , II (Cambridge, Massachusetts, pp. – , and ‘General Plan nd Design’. ), p. . . Colvin, Dictionary , pp. – . . Millar, op. cit ., pp. – . . Jeremy Musson, ‘At Home with the Bachelor Duke: . Ibid ., p. ; Herbert Maxwell (ed.), The Creevey Chatsworth, Derbyshire, the seat of the Duke of Papers , II, (London, ) p. ; the name of the Devonshire’, Country Life , ( August ), theatre is not given. pp. – . See also The Duchess of Devonshire, . Millar, op. cit ., p. . The House: a portrait of Chatsworth (London, . Colvin, Dictionary , pp. – , ; also see 1982), p. 178. ‘Volume of designs by Sir Charles Barry’, London, . NRO : Box D/masons’ accounts, , RIBA: V S/ , v- v. pp. – , and , p. . . NRO : Box : C/ – . . Late nineteenth century photographs in the . The Wanstead House chimneypieces are still in possession of Charles Bain-Smith, showing the situ , although boxed in. dining room and drawing room, and photographs . W. R. Powell, (ed.), Victoria County History: published in Country Life , March . A History of the County of Essex , V, (London, ), . Linstrum, op. cit ., p. ; Hope Dodds, op. cit ., pp. – ; advice from Philip Mansel, see the pp. – . description of a visit in in The Jerningham . NRO : Box D, Masons’ Accounts, & . Letters , ‒ (London, ), p. . eg. , pp. – . . Ibid , p. . . ‘Designs for Additions’, drawing No. , p. . . The Village Lodge and Vicarage (now Manor . Thanks to Sir Humphry Wakefield for information House) are both extant and are described in on this subject, August ; also see Hope Dodds, http://www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk/en- - op. cit ., pp. – . the-manor-house-chillingham. . ‘Designs for Additions’, drawing No. , ‘General . Linstrum, op. cit , p. . Plan’, p. . . Blore is probably responsible for the sketch . Ibid . proposals which are kept loose in the album, other . Hope Dodds, op. cit ., p. signed drawings for cottages are found in NRO: . Information from Sir Humphry Wakefield, August : Box D. ; Count Horace Sebastiani was married to the . NRO: : Box A- (plans –) and a letter from Countess of Tankerville’s widowed sister, Aglaé, in J. G.Wallace to the Tankerville agent Jacob Wilson. ; Sebastiani was King Louis-Philippe’s foreign . Hope Dodds, op. cit ., pp. – . minister in – , and attended the ‘Conference . Ibid. , p. of London’ in , which defined the new Greek . Sketches and notes on the history of the house by state, he was also later ambassador to London. Sir Albert Richardson are in the collection of . ‘Designs for Additions’, drawing No. , ‘Basement Charles Bain-Smith. Storey’, p. . . Musson, ‘Chillingham Castle’, pp. – .
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